"Mortimer, John - Rumpole and the Younger Generation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

' I recall we had a man in Chambers once called Drinkwater, oh, before you were born, Hoskins. And some fellow came and paid Drinkwater a hundred guineas, for six months' pupillage. And you know what this Drinkwater fellow did? Bought us all champagne, and the next day he ran off to Calais with his junior clerk. We never saw hide nor hair of either of them again.' He paused. Marigold looked puzzled, not quite sure if this was the punch line.

' Of course, you could get a lot further in those days, on a hundred guineas,' Uncle Tom ended on a sad note, and Marigold laughed heartily.

'Your husband's star has risen so quickly, Mrs Featherstone. Only ten years call and he's an M.P. and leading counsel.' Hoskins was clearly so excited by the whole business he had stopped worrying about his cheques for half an hour.

'Oh, it's the P.R. you know. Guthrie's frightfully good at the P.R.' I felt like Everglade. Marigold was speaking a strange and incomprehensible language.

' Guthrie always says the most important thing at the Bar is to be polite to your instructing solicitor. Don't you find that, MrRumpole?' 'Polite to solicitors? It's never occurred to me.' ' Guthrie admires you so, Mr Rumpole. He admires your style of advocacy.' I had just sunk another glass of the beaded bubbles as passed by Albert, and I felt a joyous release from my usual strong sense of tact and discretion.

'I suppose it makes a change from bowing three times and offering to black the judge's boots for him.' Marigold's smile didn't waver. 'He says you're most amusing out of Court, too. Don't you quote poetry?' 'Only in moments of great sadness, Madam. Or extreme elation.' 'Guthrie's so looking forward to leading you. In his next big case.' This was an eventuality which I should have taken into account as soon as I saw Guthrie in silk stockings; as a matter of fact it had never occurred to me.

'Leading me! Did you say, leading me?' 'Well, he has to have a junior now... doesn't he? Naturally he wants the best junior available.' 'Now he's a leader?' 'Now he's left the Junior Bar.' I raised my glass and gave Marigold a version of Browning. 'Just for a pair of knee breeches he left us ... Just for an elastic suspender belt, as supplied to the Nursing profession ..." At which the Q.C. himself bore down on us in a rustle of silk and drew me into a corner.

'I just wanted to say, I don't see why recent events should make the slightest difference to the situation in Chambers. You are the senior man in practice, Rumpole.' Henry was passing with the fizzing bottle. I held out my glass and the tide ran foaming in it.

'You wrong me, Brutus,' I told Featherstone. 'You said an older soldier, not a better.' 'A quotation! Touchd, very apt.' 'Is it?' 'I mean, all this will make absolutely no difference. I'll still support you Rumpole, as the right candidate for Head of Chambers.' I didn't know about being a candidate, having thought of the matter as settled and not being much of a political animal. But before I had time to reflect on whatever the Honourable Member was up to, the door opened letting in a formidable draught and the Head of Chambers. C.H. Wystan, She's Daddy, wearing a tweed suit, extremely pale, supported by Albert on one side and a stick on the other, made the sort of formidable entrance that the ghost of Banquo stages at dinner with the Macbeths. Wystan was installed in an armchair, from which he gave us all the sort ot wintry smile which seemed designed to indicate that all flesh is as the grass, or something to that effect.

'Albert wrote to me about this little celebration. I was determined to be with you. And the doctor has given permission, for no more than one glass of champagne.' Wystan held out a transparent hand into which Albert inserted a glass of non vintage. Wystan lifted this with some apparent effort, and gave us a toast.

'To the great change in Chambers! Now we have a silk. Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P. !' I had a large refill to that. Wystan absorbed a few bubbles, wiped his mouth on a clean, folded handkerchief, and proceeded to the oration. Wystan was never a great speech maker, but I claimed another refill and gave him my ears.

'You, Featherstone, have brought a great distinction to Chambers.' 'Isn't that nice, Guthrie?' Marigold proprietorially squeezed her master's fingers. 'You know, when I was a young man. You remember when we were young men, Uncle Tom? We used to hang around in Chambers for weeks on end.' Wystan had gone on about these distant hard times at every Chambers meeting.' I well recall we used to occupy ourselves with an old golf ball and mashie-niblick, trying to get chip shots into the waste-paper baskets. Albert was a boy then.' 'A mere child, Mr Wystan,' Albert looked suitably demure.

'And we used to pray for work. Any sort of work, didn't we, Uncle Tom?' 'We were tempted to crime. Only way we could get into Court,' Uncle Tom took the feed line like a professional. Moderate laughter, except for Rumpole who was busy drinking. And then I heard Wystan rambling on.

' But as you grow older at the Bar you discover it's not having any work that matters. It's the quality that counts!' 'Here, here! I'm always saying we ought to do more civil." This was the dutiful Erskine-Brown, inserting his oar.

'Now Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P. will, of course, command briefs in all divisions, planning, contract,' Wystan's voice sank to a note of awe, 'even Chancery! I was so afraid, after I've gone, that this Chambers might become known as merely a criminal set.' Wystan's voice now sank in a sort of horror. 'And, of course, there's no doubt about it, too much criminal work does rather lower the standing of a Chambers.' 'Couldn't you install pithead baths? I hadn't actually meant to say it aloud, but it came out very loud indeed.

'Ah, Horace.' Wystan turned his pale eyes on me for the first time.

' So we could have a good scrub down after we get back from the Old Bailey?' 'Now, Horace Rumpole. And I mean no disrespect whatever to my son-in-law.' Wystan returned to the oration. From far away I heard myself say, 'Daddy!' as I raised the hard-working glass. 'Horace does practise almost exclusively in the Criminal Courts!' ' One doesn't get the really fascinating points of law. Not in criminal work,' Erskine-Brown was adding unwanted support to the motion. 'I've often thought we should try and attract some really lucrative tax cases into Chambers.' That, I'm afraid, did it. Just as if I were in Court I moved slightly to the centre and began my speech.

'Tax cases?' I saw them all smiling encouragement at me. 'Marvellous! Tax cases make the world go round. Compared to the wonderful world of tax, crime is totally trivial. What does it matter? If some boy loses a year, a couple of years, of his life? It's totally unimportant! Anyway, he'll grow up to be banged up for a good five, shut up with his own chamber pot in some convenient hole we all prefer not to think about.' There was a deafening silence, which came loudest from Marigold Feather-stone. Then Wystan tried to reach a settlement.

'Now then, Horace. Your practice no doubt requires a good deal of skill.' ' Skill? Who said " skill" ?' I glared round at the learned friends. 'Any fool could do it! It's only a matter of life and death. That's all it is. Crime? It's a sort of a game. How can you compare it to the real world of Off Shore Securities. And Deductible Expenses?' 'All you young men in Chambers can learn an enormous amount from Horace Rumpole, when it comes to crime.' Wystan now seemed to be the only one who was still smiling. I turned on him.

'You make me sound just like Fred Timson!"

'Really? Whoever's Fred Timson?' I told you Wystan never had much of a practice at the Bar, consequently he had never met the Timsons. Erskine-Brown supplied the information.

'The Timsons are Rumpole's favourite family.' 'An industrious clan of South London criminals, aren't they, Rumpole,' Hoskins added.

Wystan looked particularly pained.' South London criminals?

' I mean, do we want people like the Timsons forever hanging about in our waiting room? I merely ask the question.' He was not bad, this Erskine-Brown, with a big future in the nastier sort of Breach of Trust cases.

'Do you? Do you merely ask it?" I heard the pained bellow of a distant Rumpole.